The merchandising of newspapers through vending machines has developed through many and varied methods and apparatuses beginning well before the turn of the century as evidenced by U.S. Pat. No. 464,067 granted to M. H. Foster in 1891 and culminating temporarily with the up-to-now generally satisfactory conventional semi-honor newspaper vendors wherein a purchased inserts certain coins in certain slots thus providing for the release of a door giving access to an area wherein a multiplicity of newspapers are contained for distribution to whomever may gain access thereto.
Customarily each of a multiplicity of coin slots is connected to a vertical channel in such manner that all the coins inserted in said slot stack up one upon another. These various stacks of coins are supported on the bottom by a spring loaded door latch in such manner that initial movement of the latch will cause the coins to rise within said vertical channel. As an attempt is made to rotate the door outwardly, said door latch will engage a rigid catch thus obstructing entry. Pawls are provided at strategic positions along the vertical channel where by a pre-determined stack of coins may be restrained from rising when an attempt is made to rotate the door outward, thus forcing said spring loaded door latch downward to a position wherein it will not engage said rigid catch permitting the door to continue rotating to a position of access. In this instance, coins are discharged from the vertical channel as door latch is removed from its position of support.
These techniques are taught by U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,925,898 Terry; 3,174,608 and 3,464,530 Knickerbocker; 3,804,223 Voegeli; 3,884,330 and 4,049,106 Chalabian. In all applications, provision is made for a dual price selection to accommodate the daily/Sunday price differential. As long as the price of the papers remained where they could be purchased for not more than two or three coins, these mechanisms were quite satisfactory. With the current price of newspapers--65 cents in one U.S. city and $1.15 in another--this type of coin sensing is rapidly becoming obsolete.
Many quite satisfactory totalizing multi-price coin mechanisms have been developed throughout the vending industry as evidenced by U.S. Pat. No. 4,143,749 which will accept any combination of coins, and vend various products at various prices, but heretofore no acceptable means has been found to use standard vending mechanisms to release the door latch of semi-honor newspaper vendors. They have all proven too expensive, too large, unsuitable for use in outside environments or any one of a variety of other reasons.
Attempts have been made to develop dual price mechanical coin mechanisms, specifically for newspaper vendors as is evidenced by U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,738,466; 3,882,984; 3,946,848; 4,000,799 and 4,037,701 Knickerbocker. These attempts have met with very limited success. The complexity of the mechanisms which tends to inhibit field servicability and the capital investment required to manufacture this type mechanism economically in light of the fact that they have limited application out of the newspaper industry tend to render them impractical.